


always find me floating on oceans

by RsCreighton, samyazaz, SomethingIncorporeal



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pirate, Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: Streaming, F/F, Podfic, Podfic Length: 1.5-2 Hours
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-10
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-06-19 03:42:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15501561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RsCreighton/pseuds/RsCreighton, https://archiveofourown.org/users/samyazaz/pseuds/samyazaz, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomethingIncorporeal/pseuds/SomethingIncorporeal
Summary: "They say you steal women."Éponine leans her shoulder against the doorframe and arches one brow high. "Do they, now?"The woman flushes, a true blush rising high beneath the rouged one that's been dusted across her cheeks. Her throat works in silence for a moment before she finds her voice again. "When they tell tales aloud, that's what they say. When they tell them in whispers, they say something else. They say you take them on, and take them out to sea, and show them what it means to truly be free. They say you'll take any woman. Even ones who are outcast or fallen or, or who don't have anywhere else to turn."---In which Éponine is a pirate queen, Cosette is a stowaway, and neither of them are at all what they expected.





	always find me floating on oceans

  
[Mobile Streaming Click Here](http://rscreighton.parakaproductions.com/Podfic/201809/%5bLes%20Mis%5d%20Always%20Find%20Me%20Floating%20On%20Oceans.mp3)

They're an hour out from port when her first mate comes to her, stands beside her at the helm and murmurs, low enough for the wind to steal the words from any ears but her own, "We have a problem."

Éponine scowls. There's a treacherous bit of shoals ahead, and she trusts her crew to have the skills to navigate them through without issue, but she'll worry less if she does it herself. "Are we sinking?"

Hélène hesitates a moment, and then, "No, Captain."

"Sprung a leak?" They'd better not have. She paid a king's own fortune not two months ago to get their hull looked over and shored up, to prevent against just such a thing.

"No, Captain."

"Then it can wait until we're in the clear."

Another brief hesitation, and then she clears her throat. "Begging your pardon--"

"An hour," Éponine says firmly, lifting a hand to shade her eyes against the glare of the sun. "Just let me get us through here in one piece, and then we'll deal with whatever problem's sprung up."

Hélène sighs, but inclines her head in an acknowledgement. "We'll be waiting for you in the hold, then," she says, and is gone before Éponine can say anything more.

The _we_ makes her frown. She trusts her crew, and maybe more importantly, her crew trusts her, trusts her to keep them safe and fed and paid, trusts her to hear their concerns and address them fairly. She was the youngest captain this ship or this crew had seen when she first took command, and she's held it for longer than most pirates manage, and much of that comes down to the trust that they've all built in one another. Her crew has no reason to mutiny -- but still, that _we_ wears at her, like a bit of sand inside a boot, and it distracts her more than she ought to allow, considering she's meant to be guiding them through shoals that could tear their fine new hull open like a knife ripping through silk.

The sun's higher in the sky an hour on, and hotter, and there's sweat dripping down the back of her neck and making damp tendrils of hair stick to her brow. But they've made it through the worst of the shoals, into deeper water where she can breathe easier, and they've left port and land far enough behind that there's nothing but endless blue stretching out around them in all directions. It's the only place Éponine ever wants to be, and she tips her face up to the ocean breeze, lets it cool the sweat on her skin before she swipes her wind-tossed hair back out of her face and goes down to the hold to see what the trouble is.

The trouble, it turns out, is standing next to her first mate and looks like something out of a shop's window, the fancy sort of shop that would never even let Éponine linger on their step much less pass through their doors. She looks like a doll, the sort that high-brow nobles buy for their daughters and then put on a shelf and forbid them to play with, with her honeyed hair falling in precise curls about her shoulders, her skin as pale as ivory and as smooth as a looking glass, her dress all full of lace and frills, with skirts that stand out as broad as a ship's hull. If she's ever seen more than a minute of sun in her whole life, Éponine will eat her boot.

She has one arm held fast by Hélène, and Éponine can see her fingers are pressed in deep. She's gripping hard, but this young woman, whoever she is, she doesn't flinch, though Éponine's sure there must be bruises blooming beneath her first mate's fingers. 

"A stowaway," Hélène says needlessly. Probably for this woman’s sake, to try to intimidate her. "Found her cowering behind the barrels."

"Why?" Éponine asks, and that's directed at the stowaway.

There's been a spark in her eyes since Éponine came down from the deck, but as soon as she's addressed, the spark leaps to flame. She stands before Éponine like she's the queen herself, though she must know who she's speaking to. Hélène would have made sure to impress upon her to behave herself. Hélène believes very strongly in protocol. It's how she made first mate, when there's a dozen on the ship who would've gladly filled the role.

It makes Éponine like her a little better, that she doesn't cower. But only a little. She's still a stowaway, still some rich, spoiled girl who thinks she can use Éponine's ship, her home, her livelihood, as her own personal transport schooner, and who already knows more about the ship and its crew than Éponine can afford to risk her passing on to the authorities.

"They say you steal women."

Éponine leans her shoulder against the doorframe and arches one brow high. "Do they, now?"

The woman flushes, a true blush rising high beneath the rouged one that's been dusted across her cheeks. Her throat works in silence for a moment before she finds her voice again. "When they tell tales aloud, that's what they say. When they tell them in whispers, they say something else. They say you take them on, and take them out to sea, and show them what it means to truly be free. They say you'll take any woman. Even ones who are outcast or fallen or, or who don't have anywhere else to turn."

Éponine looks her over, top to toe, with a raking glance. She's not fallen. She's not outcast, either, unless whoever turned her out was foolish enough to send her silks and her gems packing along with her. She talks like she's been sleeping in gutters and scavenging for scraps, but she looks every inch the highborn lady. She's no doubt got a family or a husband waiting up for her, wondering where she's gone and why it's taken her so long to come home.

The thought of a husband makes Éponine pause, and frown at her. She wouldn't be the first to run from a bad marriage, or just an unwanted one, and find her way onto Éponine's ship. She's certainly the best dressed of them, but she's not the first. She's not likely to be the last.

"What are you running from?"

The woman's jaw tightens. There's a hint of steel glinting through the flames in her eyes. "I can work," she says. "I know how to do that. I can scrub floors."

That makes Éponine burst out with a laugh. There isn't an inch of her skin that looks like it's ever touched anything rougher than the finest of silks. " _Can_ you."

She meets Éponine's gaze, holds it, and doesn't falter.

Éponine comes forward, two long strides that bring her up to stand right before the woman. "Can you handle a sword? A pistol?" She takes another half a step, until her boots push at the edge of the woman's crinoline, making it sway. "Can you kill a man, if you're called upon to do so?"

The woman's throat jumps. "I can learn," she says.

She still doesn't look away.

Éponine relents, then, and gives back the half-step of space that she stole. "This isn't a charity. Every woman on my crew has earned her place here, and pulls her own weight. I'd expect no less from you." She tilts her head toward Hélène. "The tide'll already be near to turning. If we take her back now, we'll lose the whole day. Well, she says she can swab the decks -- let's get her a bucket and a brush, then, and see if she's an honest woman after all, or if we should let her off at the first spit of land we sail past."

"Aye, Captain," Hélène murmurs, and her boots thump up the stairs as she makes her way up out of the hold. 

Éponine waits until she hears the hatch slam shut, until she sees the woman’s face register understanding that they've been left alone, that she's been left entirely at Éponine's mercy. There's a flash of nerves, maybe a hint of doubt, but she doesn't shrink back or stammer or try to convince Éponine why she shouldn't just toss her overboard now and be done with her. She waits, looking Éponine over just the same as Éponine's been looking over her.

"Well, then," Éponine says, with a smile as thin and sharp as a knife's blade. "What's your name, girl?"

She doesn't rise to Éponine's baiting, which makes her smile twitch a fraction closer to genuine. "I'm called Cosette." She takes a breath, squares her shoulders. "And you're Éponine Thénardier, the pirate queen."

It startles a laugh out of Éponine, full-bodied and genuine. "You're going to have to tell me _exactly_ what sort of stories they've been telling about me." She slings an arm around the woman's shoulders and uses it to propel Cosette towards the hold's stairs, and up them. "Assuming you can manage to finish your scrubbing sometime before next week, that is."

Cosette goes up two of the steps before she stops and twists to look back at Éponine. She doesn't look like she's made the mistake of thinking the arm around her shoulders is a friendly one, and with two steps beneath her, she's nearly the same height as Éponine. She meets Éponine's gaze and holds it, and Éponine remembers that Cosette called her a queen. She remembers that she thought Cosette looked like one, at first glance.

"I'll finish before supper," Cosette says, and then faces forward again to continue climbing the rest of the stairs, without waiting for Éponine's response.

*

Half of Éponine's crew is standing on the deck or hanging from the rigging, watching Cosette scrub. She stripped out of her fancy dress down to just the light blue linen shift she was wearing beneath, which is honestly still too fine to work in, but Éponine's not going to be the one to stop her. She's pulled her hair back, too, without a thought to messing up her perfect curls. She used a strip of silk that she ripped from the flounce of her skirt to tie it back with, and she gave the thing such a shadowed, tight-jawed look before gripping it between her hands and ripping it apart that Éponine had to wonder, watching her, whose idea the dress had been in the first place. Not Cosette's own, in any case. She'd bet money on it.

And now she's on her knees in her undergarments in front of a deck full of strangers who are making no pretense about staring at her, with the fraying remnants of her former life pulling her hair back out of her face, and she's been at it for hours and she hasn't complained once. The only time she's even stopped her work long enough to speak to anyone was when she came to Hélène with the emptied bucket and quietly said she'd needed more water to scrub with. And her gaze had followed Hélène as she'd carried the bucket over to the rail, tied a rope about its handle, and cast it over the edge to haul up fresh seawater. 

The next time she'd emptied the bucket, Cosette didn't bring it to either of them. She carried it over to the rope Hélène had used, tied it about the handle, and chucked the bucket overboard just as Hélène had done. And then she'd hauled it back up herself without hesitation or complaint, despite the weight of it.

Hélène is grudgingly impressed. She hasn't said as much, but she doesn't have to. The second time Cosette carried her bucket to the rail to refill, Hélène pushed herself off of the mast where they've been leaning, watching her from the shade beneath the sails, and loped across the deck to stop her and show her how to tie a proper bowline knot, and Éponine smiled to herself.

Hélène would say, if asked, that she did it for the crew's sake, that they're not made of buckets and can't have some spoiled rich girl go losing their buckets into the sea just because she can't even tie a knot that won't slip under load. But Éponine knows her first mate, and it wouldn't be entirely the truth. If Hélène hadn't seen something there worthwhile, she'd have sacrificed the bucket and let it make her point for her when she tried to convince Éponine to turn the ship about and take the girl home. 

She doesn't complain, doesn't even stop to stretch her back out, though Éponine's swabbed decks as much as anyone and knows how it must be aching her, how her knuckles must be chapped and raw from the sea water and the work. She doesn't look to Éponine for approval or censure, either, just sets herself to the task with the sort of discipline that any captain would cherish in her crew. And she's not wrong, either, though Éponine would've sworn she would be -- she's done before supper, though only barely, and she never even stopped to ask for something to eat for luncheon, though her stomach must be cramping with hunger from the hard work and the long hours she's been at it. 

When she's finished -- and she doesn't rush or shirk, not even as the end of her goal has drawn tantalizingly near, not even though Éponine can see that the sun has burned the skin along her shoulders and the back of her neck to a bright red -- she sits back on her haunches and pushes a few errant strands of hair from her face with the back of her wrist, and looks startled to find Éponine there near her, manning the helm but mostly watching her.

Éponine lets the moment stretch between them, to see what she does with it. Cosette just stays as she is, on her knees with her breathing coming a little rapidly from exertion, her perfect hair and flawless skin mussed from the sun and the work and making her look far more like a woman than a doll. She watches Éponine, waiting but not expectant.

Éponine tips her head toward the hatch. "There's supper in the galley. Or there will be, if you don't take your time about getting down there. You'll have to figure out a berth of your own, though, we don't exactly sail around with spares left empty, waiting to be filled up."

Cosette sits back a little heavier on her heels. She reaches up to pull the scrap of silk out of her hair but then, rather than leaving it down, just rakes her fingers through it to neaten it and ties it back up again. She's frowning, and she sounds a little uncertain as she echoes, "Berth?"

Éponine looks out across the sea. The water's choppy but not rough, just enough wind to fill their sails and take them where they're heading, and the sky's streaked with crimson fingers reaching out from the glow of the setting sun. "It's getting dark," she says, though Cosette would surely have noticed. "Even if we did sail past some bit of land in the night, we're not likely to see it unless someone nods off at the helm and sails us straight up onto the beach." She pulls her gaze from the horizon and looks at Cosette directly. "I guess we'll just have to wait until morning, to decide if you're worth the effort of bunking and feeding you."

Cosette's knuckles are scraped and her fingers cracked, her skin burnt badly enough that even her shift is going to hurt her to wear in the morning. Her skin's damp with sweat and there's salt dried in her hair, and she holds Éponine's gaze and she smiles.

"Go on," Éponine says, and nudges her calf with the toe of her boot before she ends up smiling back. "Pirates are a hungry lot. They'll have scraped the pot clean before you even get a bite, if you're not there to fight for your piece of it."

Cosette pushes herself up to her feet and heads for the hatch. Éponine follows a few paces behind her, already doing mental calculations to try to figure out where they could fit an extra hammock.

*

It's a week to their next port, and Cosette remains with them. The first few nights Éponine had joked again about the sun having gone down so they'd just have to wait until morning to decide if they were going to maroon her or not, just to see how she'd take it. Each time, Cosette had smiled like she understood, like she appreciated Éponine's sense of humor, though no one who dressed as fine as she did should have been of a temperament to enjoy a pirate's coarse jokes. And, several nights in, they're overtaken by a sudden squall and Éponine gives the call for all hands on deck, and they all work so long without rest to keep the ship upright and heading in the right direction that by the end of it, Hélène isn't even bothering to ring the watch changes anymore. Éponine finds Cosette leaning hard against the rail once the storm's eased enough that she's given the command for her crew to go down and catch what sleep they can. Cosette had worked right alongside the rest of them, and if she didn't yet know how to be properly useful, climbing rigging or hoisting sails, still she did everything asked of her, scurrying about from one end of the ship to the other, carrying tools or supplies, or sometimes Éponine's commands, when the storm's winds blew hard enough to drown her out.

She looks half-drowned now, leaning there on the rail, her hair and her shift lank and sodden from the rain and the sea both. Éponine lost count of the number of times a wave crashed over the rail and over Cosette's head as she scrambled about, but every time, Cosette had come up sputtering and wiping the seawater out of her eyes, and had gone right back to whatever task she had been set to.

Éponine approaches her, thinking she should make some sharp joke about Cosette disobeying her captain's orders, but she's as weary as any of them, and worried about the ominous cracking one of her crew reported from a yardarm during the worst of the storm's battering, and distracted by the hundred different things that are going to need their attention now, once the sun's up and the storm's gone and the crew's rested, and so she's a beat too slow in coming up with the joke, and before she can Cosette straightens at the rail, and pushes her dripping hair back out of her face, and says, "Think you can wait until morning before you decide whether or not to keep me around, Captain? I'm half dead on my feet. I think if you tried to set me ashore now, someone would have to just chuck me over the side and hope the waves carried me onto the beach."

Éponine gives a crack of laughter, surprised and delighted by the girl's dry wit, unlike anything she would have expected from a well-bred lady. But then, everything about Cosette, so far, has been nothing at all like what Éponine expected of her. Someday, she thinks, maybe Cosette will stop surprising her. But she's stopped thinking that day will come anytime soon.

"Might as well," Éponine says, with an answering sharp smile, and Cosette's grin brightens her whole face, like the rising sun over the waves. "You can't weigh more than a farthing even soaking wet, but I still don't know that there's any on my crew who's got the strength left in their arms to heave you overboard." She lets the smile fade, lets the joking fade, and tips her head toward the hatch that leads down to the crew's quarters. "Go on," she says, gentler. "Get some sleep while you can. You've earned it today."

Cosette's face washes with surprise, her eyes gone big and wide in her face, like Éponine has said something terrible to her, or something unexpectedly wonderful. It's only there a moment, though, before she covers it with a brisk nod and an, "Aye, Captain," and, almost lost beneath the rush of the sea and the snap of the sails as she brushes past Éponine, "Thank you."

Éponine lets herself watch her leave, before she pushes herself from the rail as well and goes off to start seeing to the myriad tasks that are going to require her attention before she can let herself heed her own command and get some rest.

And so, a few days later, they limp into port to resupply and have the yardarm repaired, and to give her crew a few days of well-earned and sorely-needed shore leave, and Éponine catches Cosette before she can rush down the gangway with the rest of the crew. Éponine slings an arm about her shoulders and says, "You're with me, today."

Éponine only catches the brief flicker of uncertainty because she's starting to learn how to look for it, how to spot it beneath the careful mask. She wonders if that's something that being a lady taught Cosette, or something she learned the same way she learned to scrub floors and to follow commands with unflinching obedience, even when she's been worked until her fingers bleed. 

She wonders who could have seen this woman, this fine porcelain doll who ought to have been kept safe and treated with a delicate hand, and decided to cast her down into the scullery instead.

(She doesn't think, ruthlessly doesn't _let_ herself think, about how she's done the very same thing to her, how Cosette's delicate skin has gone red with the sun and then brown with it, how her graceful hands are already becoming callused and cut and rough, how heavily exhaustion writes itself onto her features at the end of a day's work. It's not the same. Cosette _asked_ for this, asked to be taken on and taken out to sea and showed what it meant to be free, she stole onto Éponine's ship under the noses of a dozen lawless pirates so that she could have it and she knew from the start, Éponine _told_ her that claiming her freedom would come with a price, that she'd have to work for it and earn it and fight to protect it, the way the rest of them did. The way the rest of them do, every single day. It's _not the same_.)

"It's about time we got you outfitted properly," Éponine says, rather than comment on that look in her eyes, like she thinks maybe Éponine's going to chuck her overboard now, when all her crew isn't around to witness. "Can't have you climbing rigging in your underthings, now can we? You'll scandalize everyone on deck."

The mask vanishes, abrupt enough that Éponine wonders what it was really meant to hide, what Cosette must've thought she meant, but it leaves the uncertainty behind, writ plain now across her features. "I haven't any money," she says.

If Éponine had a little less discipline, she might have gaped at her. How could she have come to Éponine, dressed like a queen and carrying herself like one, but with a pauper's purse? "Consider it an advance," she tells Cosette, and ushers her ahead down the gangway.

Cosette picks her way carefully down to the dock and waits until she's got her feet on solid ground before she turns back to Éponine, fixing her with a frown that looks puzzled rather than unhappy. "You trust me to earn it back?"

Éponine grins. It's a wolf's grin, a shark's grin. "Oh, you will," she says, and it's not meant to be comforting, but Cosette looks reassured all the same.

This city has a whole street of tailors and clothiers and cobblers, and Éponine takes her along the row of them, buys her boots and breeches and stockings and shirts, buys her a hat with enough of a brim to keep the sun from the back of her neck, buys her a jacket and a neckerchief she can use to tie her hair back rather than that frayed bit of silk. She makes her try every piece of it on, then paces a circle around her and looks her over critically, shakes her head when Cosette says it fits just fine and sends the shopkeeps scurrying off to find others with a brusque, "No, she'll need more room in the shoulders there, look at how that binds when she reaches forward. She's meant to move in these, not sit still and look pretty," and Cosette, improbably, glows brighter and happier with it every time.

By the time they're finished, Cosette looks like a proper deckhand. "What do you think?" Éponine asks her, as she stands in front of a tailor's mirror and twists about, trying to see every part of her.

"It all moves well," Cosette says, stretching from the waist as though to test her claim. "It seems strong. Hardy. I reckon it'll stand up to what the sea throws at it." She stops trying to stretch and bend, and faces Éponine fully. "Thank you."

Éponine lifts a brow at her, amused. "Don't thank me. It's not charity."

"It's not charity," Cosette agrees. "But it is kind. I'd have bought all the wrong sorts of things if left to it myself, and taken twice as long. I wouldn't have even known where to start."

Éponine grunts, and fishes coins out of her purse to pay the tailor. "We’ll see how grateful you feel once I've got you climbing the rigging all day. You won't think it's kind when your arms ache so badly you can scarcely lift your spoon to your mouth to eat."

It should be ominous. It's how Éponine means it to be, a reminder that there's hard work ahead of her still, that this isn't a lady’s pleasure cruise. Instead, it just makes Cosette’s smile twitch bigger, makes her eyes shine brighter.

Éponine buys her a sturdy haversack, too, to put all her new things in, since she really did come with nothing but the dress hanging off of her shoulders. And then she waves her off, tells her to go enjoy her shore leave while she's got it, to take the opportunity to eat something that wasn't cooked in their galley while it's available to her.

Cosette looks a little lost, gazing out toward the town stretched out before them, so Éponine takes pity on her and gives her a nudge to get her attention, then gestures with a jerk of her chin towards another street, intersecting at an angle with the one they're standing on. It's larger, and busier, and Éponine says, "If you follow that a few blocks you'll come to The Dog Watch. They've got good ale, fair prices. Most of the crew likes to head there, whenever we stop here. Tell them you're one of mine and they'll treat you right. They've rooms for rent, too, if you want something a little roomier than a hammock."

Cosette gazes down the street the way Éponine indicated, her eyes narrowed as though with thought or consideration. "I still haven't any money," she points out quietly, and Éponine bites off an oath at her own foolishness.

She grabs a handful of coins out of her purse and holds them out to Cosette, enough for her to have a few drinks and a bed, if she wants them. Cosette glances from her hand, stretched toward her and waiting to drop the coins into her palm, to Éponine's face, and back again.

"We'll consider it part of your advance, too, if that's what you're worried about," Éponine says, gruff.

Cosette glances back up at her. "It wasn't," she says, her voice still quiet, almost hushed. She holds her hands up all the same, though, and lets Éponine put the money into them. "But thank you."

Heaven preserve her. "You really should stop thanking me." Éponine takes a step back, putting a bit of distance between them again. "I'm going to make you earn every farthing."

Cosette's smile is slow and lovely, like a flower blossoming beneath the sun's light. "Thank you," she says again -- deliberately, the wretch -- and then turns and begins to make her way down the street, toward The Dog Watch.

Éponine turns the opposite direction and heads back to the docks, and the ship.

*

Éponine's up in the morning almost before the sun is. She comes out of her cabin expecting an eerily-empty deck and instead finds a shadow silhouetted against the brilliant sunrise, leaning out over the rail like the ocean's calling her to it with a siren's song.

It takes Éponine a moment to recognize the outline as Cosette's, clothed as she is now in breeches and a coat against the early morning chill, instead of her usual shift. She turns her head as Éponine comes out but doesn't move from the rail, so Éponine comes to her.

"You can't tell me our hammocks are so comfortable that you'd choose them over a proper bed that won't sway beneath you."

Cosette's laughter is as clear and bright as a ship's bell, ringing out across the water. "Maybe in a few months," she says, and slants a sidelong glance at Éponine, like maybe she thinks it's daring of her to assume she'll still be around in that time, "maybe then I'll be tired enough of a hammock to yearn for a bed once more. But not yet. I've had my fill of beds." She turns, then, and leans back to brace her elbows against the rail. "I like the rocking. It's comforting."

There isn't anything about a pirate's ship that's meant to be comforting, but Éponine doesn't say that. She leans in against the rail beside her, facing the sea while Cosette faces the ship, and wonders at this girl who wore the trappings of wealth and nobility like they were a slaver's shackles, locking up a pirate's heart within. "What are you running from?" Éponine asks her, like she'd asked the first day. But this time it's softer, and this time, Cosette takes a moment before she responds. 

"I'm not." Her voice is tight enough that Éponine knows it's a lie. Her next words, though, ring of truth: "I think I'm running toward something."

Éponine turns at the rail, leaning sideways against it and facing Cosette directly. "What are you running to, then?"

Cosette's smile is a flash, like a falling star arcing across the sky. "I don't know yet." There's laughter in her voice, and warmth, and happiness. "I guess I'll have to see where you take me."

Éponine tips her face up to the sky and watches it brighten above them. Beside her, Cosette shifts to lean more comfortably against the rail, and neither of them speak until the sun’s cleared the horizon and Éponine can see her as more than just a shadow illuminated from behind.

"I was thinking," Cosette says, "you might make good on that promise about teaching me to climb the rigging."

It was more warning than promise, and Éponine’s meant to meet with the shipwright today, to talk about replacing the yardarm. She intended Hélène to be the one to show Cosette what she needs to know up in the rigging, and she's fair sure that Hélène’s expecting it, too. But Cosette’s here and it's a lovely, quiet morning, and it doesn't take more than a moment for Éponine to think, _Hélène can meet with the shipwright. It'll be good for her to get experience handling the ship’s business._

Éponine pushes off the rail and turns back expectantly until Cosette follows her. "Well, then. You'd better get those boots off, and stow them somewhere they won't get swept overboard. You'll have better purchase if you're barefoot."

Cosette obeys, and Éponine spends the morning showing her how to climb the rigging, how to keep from losing her footing when the ship rocks and sways at sea, how to climb up onto a yard and make her way across it without doing something stupid and falling to her death. And when eventually, inevitably, her arms tire and her strength gives out, instead of climbing down to the deck, Cosette hooks her arm through a ratline and lets the ropes take her weight, two dozen feet above the deck.

Éponine anchors herself in the lines in a similar fashion, close by, and for a time they just stay like that, twined through the rigging, swaying a little as the ship bobs on the gentle swell of the bay.

"Right, then," Cosette says at length, shifting her grip on the lines, and Éponine thinks that she's tired herself out completely now, and will lower herself down and take the rest that she's earned. Instead, Cosette begins to climb. "Let me get a better look at that yard, and you can show me how to stow the sails."

Éponine laughs, surprised by her and delighted by it, and does just that.

*

Before the month is out, Cosette is scrambling up the rigging nearly as surefooted as any of the rest of the crew. She volunteers for shifts in the crow’s nest as often as she's able, and half the time even if it's not her watch, she can be found clinging to the lines, leaning out with the wind whipping her hair across her face, her cheeks windburned and her eyes dancing.

Éponine climbs up to her one evening, when word reaches her that Thierry tried to relieve her so she could have some supper and Cosette waved her away and remained where she was. She doesn't seem startled when Éponine swings a leg over the rail and climbs into the crow’s nest with her.

"You have to eat." Éponine settles down next to her, knees pulled up to her chest. "Sailing’s hard work. You need your strength."

Cosette makes a soft noise. "I love it up here." She wraps her arms around her thighs and leans her chin on her knees. "It feels like flying."

"Even gulls have to eat, little bird." Éponine pulls a few hard biscuits from her pocket and hands them over to Cosette. "Don't force me to make it an order."

Cosette takes the biscuits, breaks off a corner, and eats it obediently. "Thank you."

Éponine huffs a sound that's almost laughter, but not quite. "Its a captain’s job to make sure her crew’s taken care of. Even if they don't have the sense to take care of themselves." She gets to her feet and clasps a hand on Cosette’s shoulder before climbing out of the crow’s nest. Cosette leans into, just a fraction. "Don't miss breakfast."

This one _is_ a command. Cosette inclines her head, acknowledging it as such, and Éponine climbs down.

*

Cosette's not on watch the first time the call goes up that sails have been spotted on the horizon. There's a ripple of nerves and excitement that runs through the crew, the same as there always is when there's a chance of danger or plunder ahead of them, and they all move in concert to turn the ship about and change their heading, making straight for the other ship. Éponine hardly ever needs to issue commands, at this point. Her crew knows their jobs, and they're good at them.

She climbs the rigging, halfway up the fore mast to get a better vantage point as the ship comes into view. It doesn't maneuver to try to evade them, doesn't even attempt to trim the sails and outpace them. And as they get close enough to see the colors flying from the top of her mast, snapping smartly in the breeze, Éponine realizes why.

She jumps down the last few feet to the deck, grinning fiercely. "Keep those weapons where they are, ladies," she calls to those of her crew who can hear her, who are looking nervous and excited and have a hand hovering over the hilts of their swords. "There's no plunder to be had for us here. We're in for something better."

Cosette's not on watch, so she's not there to hear it. There's a glad cry that goes up from the crew when they draw close enough to the other ship to recognize it, and perhaps that's what rouses her and brings her up to the deck. Éponine doesn't know, all she knows is that there's grappling lines thrown across the gap as their ship draws alongside the other, pirates swinging or scrambling across in both directions and a dozen different cries going up from both crews, and Éponine turns in the middle of all that chaos and sees Cosette on the main deck, looking paler than she's been since that very first day, her eyes wide in a grave face and she's got her back against the mast and a dagger gripped in a white-knuckled hand, looking for all the world like she's expecting to be murdered.

Éponine takes the stairs down from the forecastle deck two at a time and strides across the distance between them. Cosette's face washes with relief when she sees her. "Are we being attacked?" she asks once Éponine is close enough to hear without shouting. Her eyes sweep across the two ships and her throat jumps. "We're being boarded."

"No." Éponine grips her by the shoulder and pulls her half a step away from the mast. "They're friends. Who gave you that? You're going to slice your palm open if you actually try to use it, holding it that way. Here, give that to me." Cosette doesn't fight as Éponine takes the dagger from her, and she tucks it into her belt. Cosette's still looking wild-eyed and tense, her breath coming short and sharp. Éponine pulls her another half step, until she can sling an arm across her back and guide her forward. "Come on. Let me introduce you to the second-best pirate crew on these waters."

*

Both decks are in chaos with the flurry of glad reunions between friends. Someone's laid planks between the ships' rails, for those with enough patience and sense to wait for them, and so Éponine guides Cosette along them onto the _Musain_ 's deck, one hand still gripped on her shoulder to help her balance as the ships bob and sway, and the planks shift beneath their feet.

She means to introduce her to Enjolras first, as a courtesy between captains and friends and maybe a little bit to show her off, but she's stopped before they even reach the quarter deck by a familiar, elated cry and, half a breath later, a body impacting hers nearly hard enough to throw her off her feet.

"Éponine, my love! I heard we missed you by moments at our last port stop, and I nearly wept with disappointment. When are you going to let me onto your crew and take me away from this lot of overearnest scoundrels?"

Éponine laughs and wraps her arms around him, hugging him fast before setting him back. "What would your captain do if I stole you from him, Grantaire?"

Grantaire's eyes are dancing with joy and mirth. "Probably beggar himself with gratitude, honestly."

"And what would _you_ do, without a captain to moon and sigh over every watch?"

"Ah, but that's the beauty of it, don't you see?" Grantaire slings his arm around her neck, pressed in close against her side as he sweeps his other arm out in an expansive gesture. "Pining only grows the sweeter, the greater the distance. Can't you just see it, the lovelorn pirate hanging from your rigging, sighing out at the empty horizon, yearning for even the most fleeting glimpse of his true love's sails? It'd be very picturesque."

Éponine laughs again, and plucks his hat off to ruffle his hair, ignoring his squawks of protest. "It sounds like a dime novel."

"Quite my point. Jehan would probably compose poems over it, and spread them through every port we dropped anchor in. Half the world would swoon over our starcrossed love."

Éponine carefully ducks out from beneath the arm he has around her neck, and half-twists so they're facing each other directly instead of standing side-by-side. "It also sounds like a fine way to earn your captain's wrath, and I don't care to ever find myself on the wrong side of Enjolras's guns." Grantaire pulls a tragic face, but Éponine forestalls him by taking hold of his shoulder and turning him a bit, to face Cosette. "Come, I've got introductions to make. This is Cosette, the newest member of my crew. Cosette, this is Granatire, my oldest friend."

"Delighted," Grantaire says, and grips the hand that Cosette offers him. His gaze looks her over with an assessing glance, and then looks sidelong to Éponine. There's a question written there that Éponine won't answer while Cosette's standing before them, but Grantaire doesn't voice it, he just says instead, "You're a fierce-looking thing, I imagine you'll fit right in with her lot." He tips his head towards Éponine like he means to murmur a secret, but doesn't lower his voice at all. "Don't let Marius catch sight of her. He'll fancy himself in love within half a heartbeat."

Cosette looks alarmed by this pronouncement, but Éponine just grins ferociously. "Try to steal my crew," she says, "and you'll find yourselves on the wrong side of _my_ guns."

Grantaire shudders dramatically, then slings the arm that Éponine ducked out of around Cosette's shoulders instead. "Well, you couldn't have picked a better crew to join, I'll tell you that. Don't tell Enjolras I said so, though, or I'll deny it to my last breath. But come on up, we'd best introduce you before the captain starts feeling left out. It's just dreadful when he sulks."

Cosette's gaze seeks Éponine's out as Grantaire guides her towards the steps up to the quarter deck. Éponine gives her a little nod of reassurance and encouragement, and they all go up together to see Enjolras, and to make the necessary introductions.

*

There's always plenty of rum to go around when their crew meets up with Enjolras's. They all find themselves on the _Musain_ 's decks, because they're bigger and there's a crowd of them, and because Grantaire clutched at his chest and feigned fretful despair the first time someone suggested carrying the bottles across the gap between the two ships. So they've stayed, and passed the bottles around between them, and all found comfortable places on the deck to sit and drink and regale one another with tales of everything that's happened since the last time their paths crossed.

No one laughs at Cosette when a bottle's passed to her and she takes a swig to rival any of theirs, then comes up red-faced and coughing, which makes Éponine's chest burn with affection for her friends and her crew alike. Joly does shift around the loose circle they've made and clap her on the back sympathetically, until she's mastered her coughing fit and gives him a grateful smile, and then the bottle a considering look. She takes another sip, more manageable this time, and swallows it down without even a grimace.

Éponine's chest burns with affection for her, too, and pride, and satisfaction at how well Cosette is getting on with the _Musain_ 's crew. It doesn't surprise her, not really, when her own crew has expressed nothing but grudgingly-surprised admiration for her, and she's been eager to learn and eager to listen from the start. But it's still gratifying to know she made the right choice, that she's a good fit with friends and crew alike.

"Bahorel," Courfeyrac calls, his voice lifted to carry across the group. "Tell them all how you got that fine new decoration of yours, why don't you?"

Bahorel's face splits in a grin that would make anyone who didn't know him quiver in their boots. The decoration Courfeyrac means is a scar that wasn't there the last time they met, cutting across his face in an uneven arc from temple to jaw, new enough to still be pink instead of brown. "There I was, minding my own business, just trying to avail myself of the generosity of the king's own coffers," he hollers back, and the members of his own crew start laughing like they've heard this story a dozen times already, which they assuredly have. Everyone's faces are bright in the light of the moon and the stars and the lanterns, happy, eager to hear it told once more. "And this lad comes at me with a damned fillet knife, like I'm a fish he means to gut. Catches me right here, just as I'm turning toward him." His hand sweeps a practiced line along the scar. "Couldn't have been more than thirteen, by my reckoning, and damn near pissed himself when I got to my feet and he got a look at me."

There's guffaws from Bahorel's own crewmates and laughter from Éponine's, except for Cosette, who looks wan and pale in the moonlight. She wraps her arms around her knees and leans forward. "What happened to him?" she asks, her voice hushed, and it makes the laughter fade. "The boy?"

Bahorel turns to look at her, tips his head to the side like he's assessing her. He likely is. "I didn't return the favor, if that's what you're thinking," he says, not unkindly. "He was a _child_. Probably pressed into service, by his family or his circumstances if not the crown itself. I took the knife from him before he could have a second go at me and I told him next time he wants to gut someone, he ought to aim for the belly, and not the skull. Likely have more luck that way."

There's more laughter at that, and Cosette seems mollified, or at least the set of her shoulder eases as she settles back against the rail she's been leaning into.

The conversation continues, stories traded back and forth across the deck. Someone eventually, inevitably, asks how Cosette came to join the crew, and Cosette's cheeks darken and she glances at Éponine, uncertain.

"Stowed away," Éponine says into the expectant silence, when Cosette seems reluctant to fill it. "Waited until we were hours out from shore to make herself known, and then asked me to take her on when I'd had half a mind to leave her on the first rock we came across."

"And you _agreed?_ " someone asks, maybe Bossuet. He's on the other side of the deck, too far to make out through the shadows and the shifting lantern light.

"She earned it," Hélène snaps, quelling, before Éponine can respond, and startles Cosette so badly that she gapes at her.

Later, when the storytelling has fragmented into pockets of smaller conversation, people clustered together in twos or threes to catch up with one another, Éponine makes a place for herself at Enjolras's side. He has a bottle of rum and has been drinking with the rest of them, but more moderately, and the bottle is mostly full. He doesn't protest when she moves it aside, or when she settles down next to him in the space it had occupied.

"You ran into a king's ship?" she asks him quietly. "This far south?"

Enjolras inclines his head. "He's reaching farther ever year. And not just on sea."

Éponine hisses profanity beneath her breath. Half the reason she ran to sea, all those years ago, was to escape the viper's nest of politics back on land. Enjolras races toward it any chance he gets, sails hoisted high and guns at the ready, eager to trim down the king's armada at any opportunity, but all Éponine has ever wanted from the sea was escape.

_What are you running from?_ she'd demanded of Cosette, but the truth is that they all were fleeing something, when it came down to it. Everyone except Enjolras, who has always been on the hunt, in pursuit.

_I'm running toward something_ , Cosette had said, with a light in her eyes that was familiar, because Éponine's seen it in Enjolras's a hundred times before. She sees it in there now.

If the king's reaching south, the safest thing to do is to do the same, to sail beyond his grasp. There are fine, warm waters that way, and the freedom that's the only thing Éponine's ever wanted, that she promised to every woman she took onto her crew.

"There were manifests in that chest Bahorel nearly got gutted over," Enjolras says quietly, mildly, looking out to sea like his words are of no import at all, though they hit with all the force of cannon-fire. "There's a cargo galleon making its way back to the mainland, heavy with gold and spices and gems no doubt intended to enrich the king's treasury."

The thought of it knocks all the air from Éponine's lungs. "They must have the whole armada defending it. They'd know that a treasure galleon like that would just be begging any pirate crew with a seaworthy vessel to come for it."

Enjolras hums a noncommittal sound. "From what I hear, it got separated from the main fleet in the doldrums, too fat and heavy to keep up with the rest. Combeferre says, based on the manifests and records we found, it looks like they're trying to bring it home quietly, without anyone realizing just what is sailing under their noses. Who'd suspect a single ship, sailing all by its lonesome and with no colors flying, to be part of the king's own fleet?"

Éponine leans back against the wall that stretches up overhead to the _Musain_ 's forecastle deck. She tips her face up to the stars wheeling overhead and breathes out a long, careful breath. "A ship like that," she says, "could keep us sailing for years to come."

"A ship like that," Enjolras echoes, his eyes bright, his face like a flame in the lanterns' glow, "could set the king and his advances back for just as long. And we'd have your back, if you want us there."

Éponine glances at him sharply. "You found the manifests," she says. "You tracked down the whispers. It should be your catch, not ours."

"You're smaller than us. Faster. We'll need that. The _Musain_ can't do it on her own."

It should still be Enjolras's take, but she's ruthless enough not to insist, if he's willing to give her and her crew more than their fair share.

Éponine's a captain, a pirate queen, the youngest her ship has ever had. There's no one who could call her unambitious, but the truth is that even now she's sailing to escape all the things she left behind, to ensure she's never in a position where she can be bound up and weighed down by them again. She owes it to herself and she owes it to her crew, and this could see them all locked up behind the king's bars, or hanging from his gallows.

But the sea's her home, more than any place on land ever was, and the king's ambition and greed has been snatching bits of it away from her every year. The spoils of a king's treasure galleon could give her and her crew security unlike they've ever known, but Enjolras is right, too. It could give them back their home, and a measure of the freedom that she's promised every deckhand on her ship. 

It means wheeling about, and running _to_ something, instead of from it, for once. It means gambling everything.

Cosette walked away from everything she’d known and stood before her with her head held high, dressed in finery she had to know would make Éponine scorn her. She put her future, her life, into Éponine’s hands and waited to see what she would do with it, knowing it could be the end of everything. Éponine can only imagine the courage it took, the fear she must have felt but didn't show. Cosette ran toward something, and now she clings to the rigging and climbs to the crow’s nest and says it feels like flying.

"I can't agree without speaking to my crew," Éponine says. What she doesn't say is: _I can't refuse without speaking to them, either._ But Enjolras just nods like he understands, like he understands both, and when Éponine takes a swig from his bottle of rum and offers it to him, he takes it, and drinks as well.

*

Éponine's the second of her crew to wake in the morning. The first is Cosette, leaning far enough out over the rail that Éponine wonders if she's paying the price for last night's rum. Still, she lifts her head when the door to Éponine's cabin creaks, and she doesn't look _too_ intensely miserable, so Éponine goes down to her.

"You should know by now to take sleep when you can get it. Why not sleep in, when you've the luxury of it?"

Cosette just smiles and shakes her head, and gazes out across the shadowed sea. The sky's starting to brighten, though the sun hasn't yet begun to climb above the horizon. 

Éponine leans beside her, watching the waves glinting as they roll up to lap at the hull. When she speaks, she does so without turning to look at Cosette. "What did you think of them?"

Cosette's silence turns thoughtful for a moment. "I was glad Bahorel didn't harm the boy."

"He's not that sort. None of us are. We all know, better than most perhaps, how king and crown and country can force a person's hand. What good would it have done anyone to have harmed the boy?"

Cosette nods like Éponine has made her point for her with the question, like it doesn't need answering. "I can see why you're friends."

Éponine turns her head, then, to blink at her, taken aback. "Grantaire and I?"

Cosette's smile is a flash, there and then gone again, like the starlight flickering off the waves below. "I meant the crews. But yes, that too." She leans out over the rail again, as though the sea is singing to her. "I like him," she says softly, like a secret. "He said I looked fierce."

Éponine watches her sidelong, turning Cosette's words over and over in her mind, the way she might test the heft and the edge of a blade. "I thought you looked like the queen herself, when I first saw you," she says all at once, and feels as startled by it as Cosette looks.

Cosette tries twice to speak before she manages it. "Did you really?"

Éponine tips her head.

Cosette's cheeks darken. Éponine wishes there were enough light for her to see the color rising on them. "I felt like the greatest of fools. I thought for sure you'd laugh me right overboard." Her breath catches, just a little. "But you let me stay."

"Hélène wasn't wrong, what she said last night. You earned it."

The corners of Cosette’s eyes crease, the first hint of a smile. "Because I knew how to scrub floors?"

"Because you worked hard. You didn't complain."

"Why would I do that?" Cosette asks, turning towards her. She sounds honestly curious. "It was exactly what I wanted."

Éponine doesn't have an answer for her. The answer is obvious: because any other well-bred lady in her position would have. Because most other women, whether well-bred or accustomed to laboring for a living, would have broken under half of what Éponine threw at her. 

Cosette doesn't seem to be expecting an answer, or at least not waiting for one. She looks back out across the water as the wind throws ribbons of her hair across her face. The first sliver of sun is peeking above the horizon, shining gold so bright it hurts to look at it. Its brilliance is reflected on Cosette’s face, and it hurts to look at her, too.

The sun's barely touching the horizon and has bleached nearly all the color from the sky by the time either of them speak again, and it's Éponine who breaks the silence. "What are you running towards?" she asks Cosette, the words wrenched from her as though they've been caught on a fisherman's line, and she has to look out at the waves as she does, so that Cosette's little more than an instinct shape at the very edge of her vision. She can't bear to look at Cosette. She can't bear to be looked at.

_What am I?_ she wonders, but those words stick in her throat until she chokes on them and swallows them back down.

Cosette's quiet for a long, long moment before she responds. "Something better," she says at last, soft and horribly honest.

Éponine nods, and doesn't speak for a time. When she does, it's with an indrawn breath, like a person just waking up, or like someone drowning whose head's broken the surface. She turns to face Cosette directly. "The crew won't be up for hours yet, most likely," she says. "Come with me to my cabin. I want to show you something."

Cosette looks at her and smiles, and steps away from the rail to follow after.

*

Cosette looks bemused when Éponine swings her door shut behind them and pulls a knife off her belt. She looks decidedly less sanguine when Éponine flips the blade around and offers it to her, hilt-first, but even so she reaches out to take it.

"You'd have done more damage to yourself than anyone else, if we really had been under attack yesterday. It's past time you learned how to use one of these."

Cosette takes a deep breath and lets it out just as carefully. Shesquares her shoulders and gives a single, sharp nod. "Show me," she says.

Éponine steps in close, adjusts her grip around the hilt, and does.

*

She tells herself that, whether they go after the treasure galleon or not, eventually they're going to attack or be attacked, and Cosette's going to need to know how to fight.

She tells herself that Hélène's too busy, that Thierry doesn't have the patience, that Margaux will teach Cosette her own bad habits.

(There's a ship anchored beside them full of friends who could do the job, if she but asked. There's Grantaire, who's a fine hand with a blade and would gladly do it for Éponine's sake. There's Enjolras, who would see the ferociousness within her and nurture it. There's Bahorel, who would be as patient and as forgiving with Cosette as he was with the cabin boy who cut his face open. Any of them would do, and Éponine decidedly doesn't think about them at all.)

She tells herself that Cosette is her crew, and therefore it's her responsibility to see that she's defended, that she's protected. She tells herself they're not sailing yet anyway, and she hasn't any other responsibilities that need her attention, not so early in the morning, so why not see to this one.

She spends the first quarter hour just refining Cosette's grip, until she's confident that Cosette will be able to wield the blade without being a hazard to her own safety. And then they move on, and she spends the rest of the morning teaching Cosette the rudiments of how to strike, how to block an attack, how to use her smaller size and stature as an advantage against a larger opponent. By the end of it, Cosette is flushed, color riding high on her cheeks. She's breathing hard and the hair at her temples is starting to go dark with sweat, and she's grinning like she's never had as good a time before in her life.

She's not ready to start picking any fights yet, but there will be time to practice and hone her reflexes no matter what the future holds, and by the time the crew starts waking up and moving about on the deck, Éponine at least trusts that she'll be able to hold her own, if pressed to it. She'll at least have a chance.

"Keep it," she says, when Cosette hears the crew outside and tries to offer the knife back. "You need one of your own anyway, and I've got enough to spare." And then she swings the door open and ushers Cosette outside, and goes to start gathering her crew.

Hélène gives her an arch look when she sees them emerge together, but Éponine gives her a quelling frown and she hurries off to find something to occupy her attention.

*

They decide to join the _Musain_ , and go after the king's galleon.

It's not a unanimous decision, but most of the crew wants to go, their faces bright with the prospect of dealing the king a blow and filling their own hold all at once. Éponine is more surprised than she should be when Cosette raises her voice when she calls for the ayes. Éponine looks at her, her face burning like a brand while everyone else joining in looks eager or excited, and she thinks, _Grantaire was right_. There's a fierceness in her that's been there from the start, even when it was wrapped up in layers of silk and society's expectations. She doesn't look like she cares one whit about the gold, but she looks like she'd gladly rip the king's throat out with her teeth if they were lucky enough to find him on board. 

"Well, then," Éponine says when everyone's weighed in, and everyone's had a chance to make their opinion heard and have their concerns addressed. The faces of her crew, her people, her family around her are satisfied, even those who felt the risk too great, who would have rather kept far away from any ship under the king's auspices. "I'll tell Enjolras, and the rest of you lot get ready to set sail."

That sets the crew to a scramble, everyone getting to their feet and rushing out, everyone aware of what their job is without needing to be told.

They're a good group. She's worked hard to build it that way, to make them family as well as crewmates. They're all they have, each other and the ship beneath them.

She hopes she's not about to sail them right up onto the king's gallows.

*

They've a long way to sail before they'll meet the king's galleon coming north, and Éponine spends at least part of each day teaching Cosette, and practicing with her. When Éponine deems her competent enough with the little dagger to be trusted with a longer weapon, practicing turns to sparring and they move from her cabin to the deck, where there's room to move about without tripping over Éponine's furniture, and once they're out there in plain view it's inevitable that they attract an audience.

Cosette doesn't seem to mind being watched. People will lean on the rail, careful to keep out of the way, or cling to the rigging and watch for a few moments before getting back to their work, and sometimes they'll call out suggestions or just encouragement to Cosette, and cheer whenever Cosette almost lands a blow. Sometimes Éponine catches the flash of coin in the sunlight as money changes hands, but she never asks any of them what they're betting on. She's not certain she wants to know.

One calm day, when the winds are gentle but steady and so there's little attention needed but to occasionally check that they're still drifting on the right course, Éponine and Cosette are sparring again, and when Éponine swings at her, Cosette dances out of the way and then darts in, quick as a viper, and before Éponine can counter Cosette gets the flat of the blade pressed to her side. If it was a real fight, Cosette would only need the slightest pressure to drive the blade up, past her ribs, and Éponine would be dead before her body hit the deck.

They've both gone still, breathing hard and still focused only on one another, even as an excited cheer goes up from the group gathered around them. Cosette's flushed, with exertion and victory both no doubt, and her hair's come lose from its tie and there are strands framing her face and clinging to the corner of her mouth, and Éponine thinks that she couldn't look lovelier even if she were dressed in the queen's own finery.

"All right, then," one of the crew calls, laughing as she steps toward them, sword in hand. "I'd wager you only landed that one because you tuckered her out first. Let's let the captain catch her breath, and you can give me a try."

Cosette faces her and nods, and Éponine steps back amongst the rest of the spectators to watch as they square off.

After that, Cosette spars with just about all of the crew, and sometimes they'll stop in the middle of a bout to come in and adjust her grip or her stance, to show her some bit of footwork or give her advice. Éponine still starts her off most days, because Cosette's gaze always seems to seek her out first, sparking with a challenge that Éponine can't refuse. But then she'll step back and let Cosette try herself against the others.

It's good for her. She's getting stronger, faster. Éponine watches her improve from one match to the next, watches Marceline take advantage of an opening Cosette left her one day, and watches Cosette leave her the same opening the next, only to anticipate Marceline's thrust and and come back with a sweeping parry that sends her sword skittering across the deck, and sends the rest of the crew up in a raucous cheer. Éponine joins in, as loud as any of them, and Cosette's cheeks color at the approval of her crewmates. Her gaze flits around the loose circle they've made around them until it lands on Éponine, and the color deepens.

She's swallowed up a moment after that, the circle fragmenting as women come forward to clap her on the back and congratulate her on her victory, others reluctantly returning to their neglected posts. And she deserves this, she's earned it, so Éponine fades back and goes back to her work, too. But later, when she's at the helm and the ship's bell has just signaled the watch change, Éponine watches Cosette climb up through the hatch and cross the deck below her. She glances up, a hand lifted to shade her eyes, and catches Éponine watching her instead of the horizon.

Éponine tips her hat to her, an acknowledgment, and Cosette's smile blooms across her face before she turns on her heel and hurries off to climb the shrouds and relieve Thierry from her watch.

*

They stop at a port for supplies, and to trade gossip with the other sailors and captains, keeping an ear out for word anyone might have seen a heavy galleon flying no flag sailing north on its own. From the best they can gather from the various whispers and rumors and hazy recollections, they should meet up with the ship with another week of sailing behind them, if the weather holds.

They're two days out from port when the cry comes up from the crow's nest that there's sails on the horizon.

They're only two days out from port, and it could be anyone. It could be a merchant vessel or a cargo transport. It could be full of passengers and nothing worth their attention. Éponine gives the command to keep an eye on the other ship and hold their course.

A quarter-hour on, they can see the ship from the deck, enough to tell it's gaining on them, and coming from the wrong direction to be the treasure galleon. A quarter-hour past that, they can all see for themselves that it's flying the king's colors, and it's gaining on them.

A gunship, most likely, Éponine thinks, standing at the rail and watching it grimly. Probably sent from the mainland to escort the king's treasure home. She could give the command to trim the sails and try to outrun it, but it would gain them very little, when they're both making for the same destination. Then they would have a fight against two ships, rather than one.

She takes the steps up to the helm two at a time and shouts commands to her crew that will turn them about to face the oncoming ship. The _Musain_ is already doing the same, and they wheel about together and race to meet the king's gunner.

*

The smell of smoke and gunpowder is heavy on the air, and the deck rocks beneath her feet with every volley, and every impact. There are shouts and screams and explosions rattling around her, and she moves without thinking, her cutlass lifted against the flash of a soldier's swords arcing down toward her, her boot driving into his knee and sending him crumpling to the deck with a stomach-wrenching crack. The soldier's scream raises the hair at her nape, but it buys her the opportunity she needs to sidle past him toward's the gunner's hatch and get down onto the gun deck and keep her ship from being blown to goddamn pieces.

She fights and fights and fights, her pulse as loud as cannonfire in her ears. Down on the gun deck, she sees the rows of cannons and dozens of soldiers, sees them loading chain shot into the guns and whirls about with a scream of fury to find the officer giving them their commands. Her cutlass flashes even in the dim, smoke-filled air, and the soldiers behind her shout in alarm and scramble towards her when they see who she's advancing on.

She smiles, as sharp as her blade, and whatever the officer sees on her face makes him take a half-step away from her, his face gone pale with alarm.There are a dozen soldiers coming at her from behind, and that's good, that's perfect. Let them come. Let them be so preoccupied trying to defend their officer from her blade that they forget all about the shot in their guns that will shred her sails into useless ribbons.

*

It's a ferocious, desperate battle, and Éponine's not there to see it end. She's still on the gun deck, holding back what soldiers are still standing, still fighting, and using every opportunity she's able to scrounge up to slash at the ropes holding the cannons in place, freeing them to roll about the deck every time the ship pitches or shudders, giving the soldiers something else besides her to worry about and rendering the guns either useless or too dangerous to risk firing. 

She hears the cry go up that means surrender, sees the shock of it reflected on the faces around her and she straightens slowly, breathing hard, waiting for one of them to decide to do something stupid and martyr himself for the sake of his king.

Some of them look like they want to, but they all stand down. Éponine lowers her blade, but she's not foolish enough to slide it back into her belt. Not yet. Not with half of them glaring at her like they'd gladly carry her head up to present to their captain and to hell with the call for surrender.

"Well then, boys," she says, and sweeps a gesture with her cutlass toward the hatch. "Let's go see what your captain has to say for himself, shall we?"

*

Hélène has the captain held at swordspoint when Éponine comes up, blinking at the brightness of the sky after the long minutes down on the hazy gun deck, and the rest of the soldiers lined up against the rail, kept in line by her crew arrayed before them, looking all too eager for fighting to break out again.

Cosette's there too, watching them mistrustfully, and she's holding her arm strangely at her side and there's a broad stripe of crimson down the crisp white linen of the shirt Éponine bought her, and Éponine has to wrench her gaze away and force herself forward, towards the captain and Hélène and the duty that waits for her, the responsibility she bears to her ship and her crew. _All_ her crew.

They've done this often enough to know the routine, her crew and her. Everyone knows the part they play, except for Cosette. Éponine accepts the captain's surrender, though not without making him sweat over it first. She sends some of her crew up to the captain's cabin and down to the hold to take whatever goods or gold they might have use for, sends others to the navigation deck for whatever maps and charts and manifests they can find. She watches the fury flickering across the faces gathered before her, searching each one for any indication that they might be about to do something rash. Marceline moves off with her sword and starts severing the lines that run from the rail up to the rigging and sails, ensuring that the ship won't be able to do anything more than limp into the nearest port for repairs, won't be able to give chase, won't be able to report back to the king until it's far too late for him to do anything about it.

Through it all, Éponine doesn't once look at Cosette, doesn't _let_ herself look, just keeps her jaw tight and her shoulders squared until the last case has been hauled across to their own decks, and then she sends the captain and his men down into the hold to wait there until they've gone, and she jerks her head to her crew, and they all break from their rigid stances and somber faces and they whoop and holler a little bit as they swing back across the narrow gap between the two ships, or jump it, or dart across the gangway laid out to make a bridge between the two.

Éponine catches Thierry as she starts past, says, "Signal to the _Musain_. Have them send Joly over," and then moves past without waiting for acknowledgment, to where Cosette is clambering up onto the gangway, about to make her way across with only one arm to hold out for balance, like she's got a goddamn death wish.

"If you fall between the ships," Éponine says, "you're liable to be crushed to death between our hulls before anyone has the chance to throw you a line and haul you out."

Cosette pauses and twists to look back at her, and Éponine loses _years_ off her life in half an instant, watching the gangway tilt precariously beneath her feet. "I'm all right," she says, and she is, she's steady on her feet, she always has been. Then she says, "Éponine," like she's startled and, "I'm all right," again, but this time the inflection's different, and Éponine just shakes her head and gets up on the gangway behind her, grips her uninjured shoulder and urges her forward because she can't do this now, not here, not on the deck of their enemy's foundering ship.

The crew's just waiting for them to get their feet on their own deck before they pull back the gangway and cast off the lines holding the two ships together, and they immediately start to drift apart. Already, beyond the swell of their sails, Éponine can see the _Musain_ coming around, so Thierry must have sent the signal already. It won't be long before Joly's there.

Éponine fills her lungs with air, and it feels like the first clean breath she's gotten in ages. She tightens her grip on Cosette's shoulder and steers her over to a nearby barrel, pushes until Cosette sighs and boosts herself up to sit on it, and says, "Let me see."

"I'm all right, Éponine," Cosette says again, softly, earnestly.

" _Let me see_."

The sleeve of her shirt and most of the side is soaked through with blood, sticky with it. Cosette makes a face that's almost like a grimace and pulls at a gash in the fabric, tearing it up to the neck and wrenching past the seam, so the fabric gapes and she can push it down off her shoulder

The skin underneath is splotchy with bruising and streaked with blood, and there's a long, deep gash running from her collar down over her bicep. It's not bleeding any longer, but it's gaping and inflamed, and Éponine can't help herself, she lays her fingers lightly against the puffy edges of the wound, just above her collarbone, and thinks that if it had run an inch higher, _half_ an inch, Cosette might be lying in a pool of her own blood right now, instead of shifting against the pressure of Éponine's fingers and giving her a look that's half exasperation, half warmth.

"Joly will be here soon," Éponine says, and pulls her hand away. She doesn't want to hurt her, even as the sight of the wound makes her want to grab Cosette tight and never let go. "He was a surgeon before he joined the _Musain_. He'll be able to patch you right up." She curves her hand around Cosette's arm, doesn't grip this time but tugs until Éponine slides off of the barrel and onto her feet. "We can wait for him in my cabin."

Cosette goes where Éponine guides her, and doesn't balk until Éponine tries to get her to sit on the edge of her bed while they wait for Joly. "I'll get blood on everything."

Éponine just shakes her head sharply, says, "Sit," and Cosette's mouth pulls sideways with something that's not quite a smile, but she does. 

Éponine moves briskly about the room, gathering some of the things that she knows Joly will need. She snags a bottle of rum from the foot of her desk and brings that back too, gulps down a mouthful of it and then braces herself on a knee in front of Cosette. "This is going to hurt," she says, "but it needs to be done."

A muscle twitches in Cosette's jaw as she braces herself. She wraps her fingers around the edge of the bed, holds on tight, and then gives a sharp nod.

Éponine pours the rum over the wound and Cosette gives a wet, ragged gasp and jolts beneath her steadying hand. She quivers but doesn't break, doesn't flinch or try to pull away. Her lips move, shaping silent sounds, and Éponine wonders what she's saying, wonders if it's profanity or something more suited to the lady she used to be, wonders if her crew taught Cosette to swear, as well as to sail and to fight.

"All right?" Éponine asks when she reckons it's been enough, and Cosette gives a jerky nod and pries one hand free of the bed's edge. She turns it palm-up at her side, and Éponine slides her hand into Cosette's and lets her grip tight.

When Joly comes with his medical kit at his side, Éponine moves to sit on the bed beside Cosette, and she doesn't relinquish her hand. When Joly threads his needle and begins to stitch the edges of the wound back together, Cosette goes taught as a sail at her side, but doesn't make a noise. Éponine holds onto her hand, holds it pressed between both of hers, and Cosette curls her fingers through and doesn't let go.

*

They lose a day to patching up their ships and their crews as best they can. But the king's treasure galleon will still be coming north, sailing closer towards them every day, and the king's gunner will be limping back to port to send word of the attack, and so they spare only one day on it, and then they set sail again, pushing through injury and fatigue, finding ways to work around the damage done to the ship by the gunner's cannons.

Four days on in the early dawn, Éponine's woken by Hélène's grip on her shoulder, and she knows before she even asks that it's because there's been sails spotted on the horizon. She's out of bed in a heartbeat, dressed and striding out onto the deck half a moment after that. She only needs an aborted gesture and Hélène nods and goes down to wake those of the crew who aren't on watch, and Éponine climbs all the way up to the top yard so she can get a better look for herself.

The ship's little more than a shadow against the brightening sky. She hangs from one of the shrouds there, watching as the sky brightens and the shadow grows, as below her Hélène snaps out the commands necessary to get the ship and the crew ready.

They're not coming on as fast as an ordinary ship would be, or should be, and that makes Éponine's pulse quicken, her heart fluttering like a caged gull within her breast. 

It's the treasure galleon, it has to be, sailing low and heavy with the weight of the king's fortune on board. But Éponine holds her tongue, even though she knows her crew is looking to her, is waiting. She won't give the command until they're close enough to be sure.

They've planned this out thoroughly, Éponine and Enjolras together. The _Musain's_ bigger than her ship is, heavier, less maneuverable. But they've got more guns and stronger than she does, so Enjolras will hang back and Éponine will use her speed to dart around the galleon and herd it right where they want it, right into the line of fire of the _Musain_ 's cannons.

It goes off perfectly, like a dance. Éponine and her crew shepherd the galleon past the _Musain_ , and the cannons roar like they're screaming their captain's fury, and before the ship can try to break off and escape with only that first volley, she's brought them around and placed them in their path, so the galleon must sail back along the _Musain_ 's other side and take a second round of fire, or risk certain certain destruction by colliding with Éponine's ship broadside.

It's not a warship. The men on it may answer to the crown, but they're not soldiers, trained to fight and die at the king's behest. They want to live. Éponine's wagering her life and those of her crew on it.

The galleon turns, slowly, ponderously, and a jubilant shout goes up from her crew because they know they've already won. All they really have to do is wait it out, now.

The galleon's listing to starboard by the time they give in. Éponine's crew reels them in and scrambles across, and almost immediately they start hauling up chests and casks and crates, hauling them across to their own ship, lining them up on the deck for Éponine and Enjolras to look over and parcel out later.

The galleon's captain is furious, indignant, like he can't believe anyone's had the gall to raise a weapon against a ship of the king's fleet. He snarls at Éponine and spits at her feet, flings insult and invective at her until Hélène cracks him at the back of his head with the pommel of her sword and he staggers down onto one knee.

He glares but he doesn't fight, and doesn't give them cause to fight back. The king will no doubt have nothing but disdain for him, for allowing them to empty his hold and fill their own. But he'll leave with his life, and as furious as he is, there's a look in his eyes that says he knows he's lucky to be left with even that.

"Tell the king we send our regards," Enjolras snarls low and close in the man's face, one last parting shot as the last of their plunder is carted across. And then they're off, crossing back to their own ships and tossing the lines, hoisting the sails, speeding away as fast as their ships will carry them while they leave the galleon behind, lighter now and more maneuverable but injured too badly to give chase.

Éponine stands at the bow and lets the wind comb through her hair, tosses her head back and laughs with delight, with relief, with the thrill of a job gone impossibly right.

*

"You're a rich woman, now," Éponine says, focused on her task as she changes the bandages on Cosette's shoulder, carefully not looking at her face. She's torn some of the stitches free, and there's spots of fresh blood on the bandages that make her frown. "You could do whatever you like."

Even with the sizable portion that went to Enjolras for his crew, her own share as the captain and the ship's share for maintenance, every woman on her crew is now wealthy beyond anything most of them have ever seen before. Some of them are talking about retiring with it, and it makes Éponine's chest hurt though she wouldn't begrudge it of any of them. Some of them are talking of buying ships of their own, sailing under Éponine's command and turning her pirate ship into a pirate fleet. It's dizzying, unreal. They're going to have to fight ten times as hard now against the king's wrath, but they've got the resources to do it, and more.

Most of her crew is making plans for what to do with their newfound wealth, but Cosette hasn't said a word about it, and Éponine told herself she wasn't going to ask. And she hasn't, exactly, but she holds her breath despite herself and hopes Cosette hasn't realized, and will answer her anyway.

Cosette takes a breath, her chest rising and falling carefully beneath Éponine's hand. "I was rich before," she says. Her words are slow, deliberate, like she's choosing each one with care. "And besides. Some of it belongs to you."

Éponine glances up at her, startled, beginning to frown. She starts to protest, to insist that Cosette earned her fair share same as anyone else on the crew, but Cosette's mouth goes flat and stubborn.

"An advance, you said, when you bought me my things. And I mean to pay you back for every coin."

Éponine starts to speak, but stops herself. It's a pittance in comparison to what Cosette has now, what Éponine has now. It will make no difference to either of their purses, if Éponine takes it or she doesn't. But it will make a difference to Cosette's pride, so Éponine tips her head, acknowledging, relenting. She wraps fresh bandages around Cosette's shoulder, and steels herself against the way it makes Cosette suck air through her teeth.

Cosette doesn't answer her unspoken question beyond that, and Éponine told herself she wouldn't ask, so she bites her tongue and doesn't, just works quietly, steadily, until the angry red wound and the jagged line of sutures are covered up and Éponine can almost pretend she doesn't know they're there, a horrible bloody tear through the perfect bronze-and-ivory of her skin.

"You have time to figure it out," Éponine tells her, gaze fixed on her work as she tucks the end of the bandage in and sits back on her heels. "Your gold won't spoil while it waits for you to decide what to do with it."

She bites back everything else she wants to say, about how she can't retire now when she's only just had her first taste of the freedom she wanted so badly, how there's more Éponine needs to teach her if she means to buy a ship of her own, even if she does remain sailing under Éponine's command. A thousand excuses that rise up in her, reasons why Cosette needs to stay on her crew. On her ship. _With her_.

"I think," Cosette says, very softly, "I am not a very good pirate."

Éponine's gaze flashes up to her, and now her throat is choked with a hundred protests, a hundred examples of how Cosette is amazing, how she's an asset to the ship and the crew, how she's blown every expectation Éponine had of her out of the water. All those words, all those things Éponine could and should say to convince her otherwise, and they all tangle up in one another and all Éponine can manage is, " _Why._ "

Cosette's smile is slow and a little wry and it pulls crooked. She lifts a hand to Éponine's cheek, fingers pushing into her hair. "Pirates are supposed to take what they want, aren't they? See something and want it and take it for themselves, and I--"

Éponine waits, not breathing. Cosette's touch is light on the side of her face. Her once-smooth, delicate fingers are callused now, marked with small scars from the cuts and scratches that are an inevitable part of life at sea. Éponine thinks they're more beautiful now than they were when they were unmarked. They're strong and sure now, they can tie a sheet bend as fast as anyone on her crew, and they're so, so gentle.

"I am not very good at that," Cosette finishes, soft as a whisper.

Cosette stole onto a pirate ship and asked for the impossible with her head held high, and then she earned it, day in and day out. She wanted freedom and she saw her chance and she claimed it, fought for it with bared teeth and an iron grasp. She all but demanded that Éponine teach her how to climb the rigging, so she could stand in the crow's nest and know what it felt like to fly. Éponine has never heard a more obvious lie in all her life.

"You can buy anything you might want, now. You don't have to steal it."

"I could've bought anything I wanted before," Cosette points out with a little grimace. "Almost anything. Some things can't be bought, only had."

Like freedom. Like the feeling of flying. Like the wind in your hair and the sea stretched out before you as far as the eye can see. "What do you want? If it's anything in my power--" Anything to keep her here, on her ship, on her crew. Anything to keep her from _leaving_.

Cosette gives a soft, hiccuping sound that might have been meant to be laughter, and her hand presses a little more solidly on Éponine's cheek. She shuts her eyes and she looks almost sad, and that's intolerable. She's been nothing but happy since the moment Éponine agreed to let her try to earn her place, growing brighter with it by the day. Even with her shoulder laid open and Joly's needle plying through her skin, nothing but rum and the grip of Éponine's hand to dull the pain, she hadn't looked like this.

Cosette leans toward her, listing forward like a foundering ship, and Éponine is too busy trying to figure out what it could be that Cosette wants but won't steal and can't buy -- and whether Éponine can fix that so that she's happy, so that she _stays_ \-- to realize why until Cosette's mouth is on hers.

Her lips are soft and so gentle and her breath stutters between them. The hand on Éponine's cheek hovers like she can't decide whether to slide it into her hair or pull it away entirely and it's that thought, that Cosette might think this is something she's stolen and her nerves might falter, that Cosette might _stop_ , that has Éponine pushing forward, making a sound into the kiss, catching hold of her uninjured shoulder and pulling her in, showing her by example how exactly a pirate might take what they want, without worry or fear or regrets.

It starts gentle but they're pirates, both of them, and Cosette has always been a fast learner. In moments they're both gasping against one another, clinging to each other like driftwood in storm-tossed seas.

When Cosette breaks away, long minutes later, she's breathing hard, her eyes gone wide and dark. There's a smile trying to break across her face, the one Éponine likes, the one that's as brilliant as the sun. She looks at Éponine like she's just placed an entire armada's worth of treasure into her palms.

"There you are, then," Éponine says, pushing her fingers through Cosette's hair because she can. "Stealing kisses in a lady's bed?" She clucks her tongue. "Any respectable cityfolk would call you a scoundrel and a blackguard, and they'd probably need their smelling salts to recover if they ever crossed your path." 

Cosette's face lights up as though that's the best compliment Éponine could have paid her.

"Come," Éponine says, tugging at Cosette, urging her up onto the bed properly instead of just sitting at the edge of it, pulling her in until Cosette's sprawled halfway across her lap. "I think perhaps you're right. I think you didn't claim that quite so boldly as a pirate would. I'm sure you'll improve with diligent practice, though."

Cosette's breathless and beaming. She slips her hands into Éponine's hair, more sure now, and claims another deep kiss. When she finally loosens her arms around Éponine enough to set her back, her eyes are dancing, with happiness, with humor, with warmth.

"I don't know," she says, one hand slipping down to curve warm and solid around Éponine's shoulder. "I may need another lesson or two first." She leans in, lingers, her breath hot as she bites delicately at the edge of Éponine's jaw. "You'd better show me how it's done."

Éponine laughs, laughs with surprise, with delight, with a fierce and violent sort of joy. She settles Cosette closer on top of her and proceeds to demonstrate just exactly how a pirate might claim, boldly, and take, eagerly, and how she might hold fast to that which she desires most.

Cosette, as ever, is an eager pupil and a delightfully quick study. 


End file.
